


Of the Cloth, Of the Heart

by kissmysass, Mayhem



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst, Biblical References, Catholic Guilt, Catholicism, College Student Hermione, Drama, F/M, Forbidden Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, POV First Person, Present Tense, Priest Draco, Priest Theodore, Questioning Beliefs, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-23 13:32:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2549321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissmysass/pseuds/kissmysass, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayhem/pseuds/Mayhem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco Malfoy has spent his entire life in training for Priesthood - celibacy, piety, prayers - the whole deal. What he doesn't expect is for a random girl from the local University to visit the Church, bringing with her a life and vibrancy he has never known. Torn between the holy path he has been groomed to tread and the freedoms this girl shows - what will he choose?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work I originally posted on my fanficion.net account (RunningInAir), but have moved to ao3, as well. kissmysass has helped by being my amazing beta-reader, as well as writing the chapters from Theodore Nott's point-of-view herself. Enjoy!

The quiet of the cathedral on the evenings when there is no service never ceases to amaze me.

Golden-glowing lights hang from the ceiling at even intervals, shedding small halos of illumination onto the pews beneath them; the setting sun bursts through the stained-glass windows, casting would-be shadows of brilliant colors everywhere they touch; even the walls themselves seem to burn from within, their luminosity almost too much for the eyes.

It is impossible to view this room in all its brilliance without being cowed into respectful silence. Even I am hard pressed to carry any semblance of attitude into the sanctuary.

Hands tucked into the sleeves of my robe, I make my way down the center aisle. My footsteps interrupt the stillness of the evening, but only slightly. In fact, it is almost as if the soft clip of my shoes on the polished tile adds an extra element to the church, offering up a tiny spark of life, evidence that someone is here to witness the beauty of this place.

Of course, there are always one or two members of the congregation who visit on these nights. An older woman kneels at the foot of the altar, forehead resting against clasped hands, flaming red hair falling like curtains to either side, shielding her, creating a private room for her grief. Her son has been diagnosed with cancer, and she is here often, praying for understanding, healing, a miracle, or perhaps all three. I have lit a candle for both her and her son every night since she received the news. As I pass her, I rest a hand gently on her shoulder, her frame shaking with silent sobs.

"Thank you, Brother Malfoy," she whispers, and I squeeze her shoulder a bit tighter in acknowledgment, but I do not require her gratitude. I do the things I do because I know they are right, they are what I have been raised to do, and they are what I have always done.

Sitting on the front pew of the left side is another 'regular.' Frank Longbottom has lost his wife to Alzheimer's, no longer remembering her husband, her son, or even herself most days. I know that Frank, too, finds solace in the church. He is the only one who comes every single night, and I can tell which nights he has visited his wife – the soft crinkle of a candy wrapper in the pocket of his slacks can be heard when he rises to his feet, and the lines on his face are tinted with more sorrow than normal. He nods tiredly at me as I move to the table laden with candles, and I return the small gesture as I pull the lighter from my pocket.

I do not often disturb the peaceful silence of the cathedral, but I am overcome as I light the same two candles I light every night for Mrs. Weasley and her son, and then move my wrist to the right, lighting another two – for my father and mother. The soft tenor of my voice, quiet and reserved, forms in my throat as I hum a simple hymn. I always pray for my mother and father. They thought the life of a priest would be hard for me, and I must admit to myself that it has not been the easiest path, but what is right is hardly ever easy.

The flames flicker just the slightest bit as I move away from the table, the bottom hem of my robe falling just above the ground. Continuing the hymn, I move back down the aisle, pausing to straighten a few hymnals as I go. The Latin, as it so often does, escapes me, and it is wordlessly that I make my way to the back, exiting to the east side of the Church.

Truthfully, it has taken several years to become accustomed to this life: the piety, the celibacy, the routines, and the seemingly never-ending prayers, but it is – above all else – a peaceful life, and I feel I have found myself here, answered some great calling. There are times, of course, when I doubt that I am worthy of this path, when the pressure of my father to remain true to the Church and my beliefs nearly suffocates me, but in those times, all I need do is throw myself further into my studies and everything rights itself once more. I had thought it would be a lonely life; I was barely even five-years-old when I knew this was the direction my life would take, and that I was allowed no other, not that I particularly minded. The Nott's, a family whose heritage has been tied to the Church as long as my own, had a son my age, Theodore, and he was promised to the Church, as well. I don't know if our parents thought having similar fates would forge a friendship between us, but that is not  _exactly_  how it happened.

Theodore and I get along well enough most days, but there are times when I cannot stand to even look at him, and such sinful thoughts only bring me guilt later when I am giving my confessional.

Father Lupin doesn't understand, but he is much older than we are, and I don't expect him to. We may all be wedded to the Church, but generation gaps still exist, and there is a silent competition between Theodore and I that the adults do not understand. Theodore isn't even aware of it, I'm fairly certain, but he is just so bloody perfect in everything he does. Never late for morning prayers, never stumbling over the Latin phrases, never having to do penance for anything. I do not fail often, but every time I do it feels like a travesty. If my father were to hear about my mistakes, I do not think even God could save me.

There I go again – my thoughts impure and riddled with doubts.

A sigh passes over my lips as I look over my shoulder at the sanctuary before stepping out of the door to head to the gardens. The Church is right in the middle of the city, so it is not a large plot, but the rose bushes smell so much sweeter at night, and I cannot sleep unless I have visited them. My steps falter as I see another form already seated on the bench I so often claim as my own.

 _Theodore_.

Apparently, I won't be granted my solitude tonight.

"Honestly, Theodore, I know you're in love with me, but do you have to stalk me to my favorite –" The snarky comment withers and dies on my lips, tasting as bitter as they should. I know better than to taunt the other Brothers of the Cloth, let alone make accusations of perceived affection where none exist. It doesn't matter, though, because it is not Theodore who is here to chastise me for my wayward tongue (though if I had a pound for every time he berated me for using the Lord's name in vain, I'd be far wealthier than I already am…or my family is, rather); sitting on what I have come to think of as  _my_  bench is a young girl. I can tell immediately by her attire that she belongs to the school across the way. Her uniform is crisp, ironed to perfection, and the burgundy shades of her skirt are vivid in the light of the setting sun.

"Well, that is certainly not a way I've ever heard a priest talk before."

Her tone is flavored liberally with amusement, and I find myself powerless to stop the sharp wit that so often finds me on my knees in contrition before God.

"Seems to me you've been spending your time with the wrong priests, then. All the  _good_  ones are equal parts wit and faith."

_Oh, surely I am going to go to hell for this._

She laughs. It is, quite possibly, the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

"Maybe you're right, Father…?"

"Oh, I am not a Father. Not yet." I take a step closer to her, inclining my head towards her in a nod. "Brother Malfoy, and you are?"

She stands up off the bench, slim fingers brushing at the material of her skirt. Unruly, chestnut hair frames her face in curls that seem to have a mind of their own. It isn't until she moves closer, a hand outstretched before her, that I am taken aback. Her eyes are so bright, so expressive.

"I'm Hermione Granger."

I take her hand, the warmth of her skin a stark contrast to the coolness of the night. Her grip is firm, confident, as if she fears nothing and no one in the world.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Granger. What brings you to the gardens this evening?"

She turns from me, and I think she is about to simply walk away, but she only takes a few steps towards the nearest rose bush. For a long moment, the only motion is the gentle wave of stray hairs pushed by the wind, and the bottom hem of her skirt fluttering in time with the breeze. My own robe billows about my feet, a few strands of my hair brushing along my forehead; but then she moves.

I can't help but think of how innocent she looks, here in the garden, hands outstretched to pluck a single rose from amidst the thorny branches. This must have been how Eve looked, plucking the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. So beautiful, so enticing.

So  _forbidden._

Bushy waves tumble over her shoulder as she tilts her head, and I cannot stop from moving closer, wanting to see her face, to see the intelligence flaring brightly in the deep brown of her irises - intelligence and a curiosity that burns as bright as the flames of the candles I've just lit. Her lips quirk up on one side as she studies the rose, fingers lightly grazing the petals, releasing more of their intoxicating fragrance into the air between us; and I have the most peculiar sensation that I have just opened a door into a world that is far different from the sheltered life I have known within the confines of the clergy.

"Tell me, Brother Malfoy," she says, voice soft yet clear, the rose spinning now between her fingers – a dizzying array of red, "do you believe in God?"


	2. Chapter 2

" _Do you believe in God?"_

It is a simple question, one that  _should_  have a simple answer – particularly for a man who has spent his entire life in the service of the church, but I find, for some reason, the word 'yes' does not fall so readily from my lips. Instead, I can do nothing but continue to watch her spin the rose around and around between her fingers.

"I imagine you must believe, given your chosen path in life, but I don't know if I can say the same."

Her eyes lift up, taking in the grand façade of the church, but there is no malice in her eyes as can usually be found in the gaze of those who do not believe. There is only a curiosity, burning so brightly it almost takes my breath.

Finally, I find my voice.

"Would you believe me if I told you that no one's ever asked me that before?"

Those brilliant eyes move to my face now, scrutinizing me, searching for truth, I imagine. It is painfully obvious that this is a girl who seeks to know and understand all things and does not rest until her mind is satisfied.

"No, I probably wouldn't believe you."

My hands slip into opposite sleeves, a secretive sort of smile gracing my lips as I return her observational stare. Her lips purse in disbelief.

"Really?"

I nod.

"No wayward souls seeking confirmation? No questioning minds seeking validation?"

I shake my head, amusement sparking in the shadows of my eyes.

"Does  _everyone_  just take things on faith?"

"The members of the Church generally do just that, yes." I can't quite keep the bubbling laughter down in my gut, and the sound reverberates off the stone fountain and statues in the garden. She just looks so  _offended_ , as if she simply cannot believe the lack of doubt in the average mind. "I take it you aren't one to take things on faith, then?"

She shakes her head, curls bouncing off her shoulders with the movement. "Never. Give me proof. Facts. Evidence. The mind is too big to think so narrowly."

I incline my head, conceding her point. There have been many times when I have questioned things. Never aloud, of course, but when night has fallen and I have retreated to my room here in the Brotherhood Quarters, unable to fall asleep, I have stared at the ceiling and wondered if the things we preach, the things we have spent our entire lives learning about, and the things that we work to ensure others believe…if these things are true at all.

I have never spoken a word of such doubts to anyone, and I do not plan to begin doing so with this young woman, but a part of me yearns to confide in  _someone_  – someone who will not look down on me for entertaining the more rational side of my mind.

Slowly, I begin to walk, indicating with a tilt of my head for her to join me. Together, we set off on an aimless pattern through the bushes and flowers.

"If you value knowledge so highly, how do you find yourself at a Church? Would a library not be a more prudent place?"

She shrugs a shoulder, looking up at me before directing her eyes around the garden. "I have a very hungry mind, Brother Malfoy."

"Even for things you do not believe in?"

She nods. "'Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.'"

I look at her out of the corner of my eye.

"Plato."

"You know philosophy?"

"I study more than just the Bible. For someone who thinks everyone should have an open mind, you seem to have a set opinion on Men of the Cloth. The term 'hypocrite' comes to mind."

She scoffs. "Won't you get in trouble for having such a flippant tongue?"

A smirk twists my mouth as I look out over the garden. The lights of the city glimmer all around us, but here it is as if we are in our own world, all the worries of the secular plane far removed.

"That has yet to stop me, I'm afraid."

I'm rewarded with another soft laugh as we turn the corner at the end of the garden and begin making another lap around the perimeter. Far above our heads, the Church bell rings. We both pause, heads tilted, listening to the clear, musical tones.

_One…two…three…four…five…six…seven._

She sighs softly into the sudden quiet that falls after the chimes have stopped.

"I have to go soon."

My ribs seem to shrink, crushing my heart just the tiniest bit, but my face remains impassive. I have enjoyed her company much more than I had expected upon finding my solitude interrupted. A question dances on the tip of my tongue, but I bite down on it. I am not needy enough for conversation to ask her if she will return. It is more than obvious that her place is in a university, not in a Church garden with a priest-in-training.

"Brother Malfoy," my heart throbs to hear my name on her lips, "you never answered my question."

"'But he who doubts is condemned, if he eats, because he does not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.'"

Her eyes flick up to mine, a sharpness there. "I'd prefer an answer, Brother Malfoy, not regurgitated verses."

"Now who has a flippant tongue?"

She begins walking again, completely unfazed. "Do not pretend to chastise me now." Her shoes make soft clipping sounds on the stones of the walkway, a pleasant contrast to the silence of my own slipper-covered feet as I take a few long strands to catch up with her.

"Would you not think a Brother would believe in God?"

In a whirl of chestnut hair and sweet fragrance, she faces me. "Are you always so infuriating? I've never seen someone go through such efforts to dodge a simple answer."

"You are most certainly not the first person to call me infuriating."

"I imagine not." Huffing slightly, she turns back around and continues walking, her feet leading her towards the gate opening up towards the street. She pauses at the wrought-iron, one hand resting on the bars. "As silly as it is to not doubt the words fed to you by others, it must be nice to be so certain of things. Not having faith can be a burden at times."

Her words resonate deep within me. "Tell me, Miss Granger, why do you  _not_  believe?"

Without turning around, she murmurs, "'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.'"

"Oh, no. You don't get off easy with a quote if I'm not allowed the same."

The gate is nearly as tall as she is, the brick walls rising above her head by a foot or so. From the back, she almost looks like a child, peering out at the world with wonder, eager to discover all it has to offer; but when she turns to face me, there is a reserved quality to her eyes that speaks of years lived in a world filled with sadness. I have seen that look before, and I could have predicted the next statement to fall from her lips.

"How can someone so easily believe in a God who allows such awful things to happen to His creation? How can He make us all in His image, but then be perfectly content with all the sickness, the murders, the rapes…Why not just step in and stop it? Why have let it get this far at all? Would it not have made more sense to simply never put that tree in the Garden of Eden? To eliminate the possibility of Original Sin and thus give his Creation a perfect life?"

The longer she speaks, the more fire fills her words, until I feel she might burn me with her tongue.

"Why make a Creation such as the human race and not give them free will?" I counter, burying the thought that I am still regurgitating lessons learned. "Eve picked and ate from the apple because she wanted to, because she was given the capacity to choose her path, and she chose a decision she knew she should not have made."

"Free will." She snorts. "It is not a matter of free will. It is a matter of a parental figure not taking care of His children."

"Look around you, Miss Granger. We have been given plenty."

"Yes, but doesn't the verse go: 'the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away?' Don't presume to have me believe everything we have is a gift from a God who will just as easily take it back. I don't know about you, but I learned in Primary School 'no take-backs.' Seems that such a simple, and fair, rule would be easily followed by a Just God."

Despite my attempts to keep a hold of my temper, I feel my frustrations rising higher and higher. I want to answer her questions eloquently and in such a way that she can't help but believe me, but here I am, almost floundering under her queries, her statements like repeated slaps to my face.

Her expression softens, and I am only agitated further. The last thing I want from anyone is  _pity._

"Think of it this way, Brother Malfoy: is it really free will if our only options are either to believe or to burn forever in Hell?"

My fingers, hidden beneath the sleeves of my robe, grip onto opposing forearms so tightly that I am certain bruises will remain the following day. An entire lifetime of spiritual training, and such an ultimatum has never made itself clear to me. Who does this girl think she is to come into my life and throw everything off kilter? Was I not struggling enough on my own? Was the weight of my father's approval not a heavy enough burden to bear?

"Salvation is a gift." My voice is harsh, much harsher than I ever intended to be towards this young woman, and I'm somewhat horrified to find that it feels  _good_  to lash back. "One that should not be taken lightly. Perhaps you should spend some time on your knees in front of the altar, Miss Granger."

She looks taken aback at first, but anger swiftly floods her cheeks, the color matching the delicate flower in her fingers, though I know she is far sturdier than the rose.

"I do not need prayer, Brother Malfoy, but by all means, if it makes you feel more comfortable with your beliefs,  _you_  can pray for me. I won't waste my time whispering words to the sky, waiting for an answer that will never come."

Before I can respond, she spins on her heel, throws the gate open, and stalks out. A sharp clang echoes in the silence she leaves behind as the gate crashes closed. I stand there, staring at her retreating figure until she is lost from view.

_What just happened?_

I pull in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It is long past the time I should have returned to my room. I turn to leave the garden, but a splash of color on the ground catches my eye.

The rose.

Irrational anger fills my chest again, and I scowl at the rose as if it is the flower's fault I was verbally bested by that woman. And yet…I reach down and snatch it up, holding it in my open palm as I sweep back inside the Church, heading straight for my room. Theodore is already there, seated at his desk, Bible open, notebook beneath his left hand as he scrawls notes upon notes.

"Haven't you read through that entire thing three times already?"

"Good evening, Draco." No matter what I say, I can't ever get Theo to react. "Where have you been?"

"The garden." My answer is short, almost to the point of rudeness, but dark eyes never leave the desk. Snorting to myself, I move towards my bed, snatching my own Bible from the nightstand and flipping straight to the verse I cannot get out of my head. My lips shape the words in silence:

" _Song of Solomon 4:9 – You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace."_

My fingers look even paler than normal against the crimson of the rose as I press it between the pages, choosing to not ponder the reasons why that verse has chosen now to stick in my mind. The fragrance of the petals fills the air around me when the pages close around the rose, and I breathe in deeply as I lean over to place the Bible back onto the nightstand. The flower within has pushed the cover up slightly. Frowning, I reach for the closest book to me, a history of the Knights Templar. It is heavy enough to flatten the rose. I'm not even sure of why I am keeping it at all.

I had a supremely frustrating conversation with a beautiful woman. It won't happen again, and I need to simply put it from my mind. Still, I leave the two books where they are – for now, at least.

A loud sigh escapes me as I stretch out on my bed, staring morosely at the ceiling.

"What happened, Draco? I can practically hear you pouting from here."

"I don't pout, Theo. I'm just going to sleep."

"In that case, rest well, Draco. Do not forget we are leading morning prayers tomorrow."

I groan and roll over onto my side, directing my sullen stare to the wall.

For the first time in years, my dreams are confusing and wild, full of russet hair and expressive eyes that pierce me with accusations and questions to which I don't have the answers.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Days. It'd been days since he had noticed that Draco had lost his head. Draco had become harder to rouse and even harder to make focus when prayers were being said and sermons were being read. Theodore could not turn off the way that his mind worked and how he noticed the little nuances in the way that the people around him lived. He shared a room with Draco, so he had become very much aware of the young man's little habits. It used to drive him crazy when the blond would fidget because he didn't like kneeling for long periods of time, or the way he would tap his fingers against his bible when he listened to others preach, but Draco had slowly grown out of the habits as he grew accustomed to life in seminary school.

Now, they were back, and Theodore had done his best not to notice how Draco flipped to a certain page in his Bible or the way that he stroked something between its pages as if it might have been precious. The word of God was supposed to be precious to them, but Theodore knew better than to think that was what Draco found comfort in between those pages. It had been wrong for him to notice the page number, but his keen eyes betrayed him in that fact, and his even keener mind betrayed him with the words printed on that white page.

_You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace._

There was something tender about the gesture, but whatever that may have been it was lost on Theodore.

The two of them had grown up in the same circles, because both of their families had deep roots with the church, and they were both the sacrificial lambs given for their families' places in the church. Theodore had noticed Draco far before Draco had noticed him, but it wasn't something that Theodore had ever bothered to share with his roommate. So, he swore not to bring up the fact that he noticed a change in Draco again. The fight was back in those gray eyes, and Theodore worried that his friend would go to war against his destiny in the church for God only knew what.

He wouldn't ask. Theodore swore to himself as he made the Sign of the Cross and slowly rose from his slightly aching kneecaps. The sun was starting to filter in through the small opening between the drawn curtains and soon he would have to be in the church for morning prayers. On his modest desk sat the alarm clock blinking the time at him, but no sound came from it. Theodore woke up on his own, but he found the silence of the room disheartening because Draco's alarm clock should have been blaring as it always did. Maybe his brother had forgotten to set it. Theodore could only hope that was the case. He wasted no time in getting out of his sleeping clothes before slipping into the plain black slacks that he wore day to day.

Poverty was the way of the church, even though it had not been the way of his family. Part of him missed the fine fabric of his old clothes, but he had learned to accept his new vow of poverty with grace. The black button-down hung stiff against the boudoir door and he caught a glimpse of his sleeping roommate in the mirror there. The boy was sleeping soundly, but Theodore knew it couldn't last. He threw open the curtains and let the pink sunlight shine in before he went over to Draco and shook his shoulder gently.

"Get up, Draco. You are going to be late for Morning Prayer if you don't."

Draco threw his arm out to push Theo's arm away before rolling onto his side so he could face the blank wall as he muttered.

"I don't feel well, Theodore. I won't be going today."

It was a lie, Theodore knew that, but he wasn't going to question or accuse him because that was not his place. Instead, he moved back over to his side of the room and stood in front of the mirror as he started to undo his button down from the hanger.

"Perhaps you can still go to Morning Prayer and ask God to heal you of whatever ails you, brother."

"His humor ails me, Theodore."

"Such blasphemous words, Draco Malfoy," Theodore said with no true scolding tone in it. "Perhaps you should also go to confession."

"Are you going to pester me till I get out of bed then?"

"Not at all."

Apparently, Draco didn't believe him, because he threw off the thin blanket that covered him and quickly threw his feet over the edge of the bed so he could sit up, blond hair in disarray. Theodore looked away from Draco and concentrated on his shirt till it was undone before pulling off his plain white-t and pulling the button-down off the hanger. He slid it over his shoulders, but not before catching Draco's eyes in the mirror of the boudoir. They had this look that he might have seen something that he shouldn't have, but Draco always looked that way when he caught sight of his back.

The guilt that Draco showed made Theodore all the more aware of the material of his button-down rubbing over the long scars that swept across his back. Theodore was hard pressed to remember a time when they were thin and hard to see because now they were grotesquely thick and could be seen if his shirts were too tight. Draco had once had the audacity to ask Theodore about them, and he had been completely honest as to where they had come from.

A cat o' nine tails had been the culprit that had left those scars behind, but Theodore had not been the one to guide those metal tips across his skin. His father was a God-fearing man and had always wanted to put the fear of God into Theodore, as well. Every lesson in the Church had been a hard one for him, because his father drilled it into his mind with the crack of a whip. Extremist, some might call him, but Theodore had learned early on that complaining would only make it worse.

_One must always remember that Christ suffered more._

He remembered.

He also remembered that the hard lessons were the reason he had fallen in love with a demon called heroin. The track marks were like the eyes of many memories winking up at him to remind him that he was not as perfect as people might have thought. It wasn't that he ever thought he was perfect, because he never would think such a vile thing, but the perfection expected of him had caused him to crack under the pressure. The prick of a needle and the burn of the sauce had been a sweet release from the hell that he had been living in, but he never escaped for long.

The burn of the metal tips of the cat o' nine tails was the quickest way to make the delirium of his demons fade away into nothing. Theodore had so many demons to fight back then, but he realized that the Church could save him - not only from himself, but from the man that raised him. God would protect him in the stone walls of the cathedral, and he would be able to hide in the light of the stained glass with a rosary in hand.

Theodore made quick work of the buttons of his shirt as he neatly tucked those memories into the back of his mind behind memorized prayers. This place was not his prison - it was his salvation, and he could never understand Draco's distaste for it. Maybe Draco was stronger than him, because he could make it out in the world outside of the walls of the church. Theo didn't envy him that; he would rather keep his nose buried in his Bible and his knees to the ground. He would thank God for the rest of his life for rescuing him from that place.

Once his shirt was neatly tucked in and his belt was tightened around his waist, Theodore placed his Brother's Collar around his throat before looking over to Draco as he barely started doing his bed.

"Why do you act like your demons are within these walls, Draco? What demons plague you so?"

"You would not understand, Brother Theodore," Draco said calmly, but Theodore saw his shoulders tense for a moment as he tucked the corners of his sheets under the mattress.

"We all have demons. I can understand that."

"You could never. You will be the perfect Priest some day without any trouble."

"Hm," Theodore noted with a smile on his lips. "Perhaps you are blind, my brother, or perhaps hubris has taken over your heart. We all suffer; it is not something unique to you."

Draco paused, and Theodore merely pulled his wooden rosary out of his pocket and took his Bible off of his desktop. He held them both to his side and stopped inside the doorway to look at his roommate.

"If you wish to talk, I am willing to listen. No judgment."

"I fear even you would judge me for this."

"Then I fear you do not know me at all."

Theodore had already stepped out into the hallway when he thought he heard Draco whisper.

"…there is this girl."


	4. Chapter 4

It has been five days now, I think, though it seems as if a far greater amount of time has passed. It is only in the daily activities and chores in which I must partake that I have been able to distract myself. Theodore has commented on my behavior, claiming I have been "brooding more than he thought possible." I ignore him, though, as I have always done. It gets easier, too, as the hours pass. With my thoughts so full and conflicted, it is difficult to notice _anything_  around me.

"Brother Malfoy."

A sharp voice brings my attention back to my present surroundings. Funny how the church always seems so large and ostentatious, yet I have become so wrapped up in myself that I have completely forgotten I am sitting in the grand sanctuary. Statues of saints glare disapprovingly at me from every corner of the room, as does the face of the robed man before me. My eyes almost glaze over as I shift my focus, as if the world around me is not meaningful enough to sharpen. The pew does not even feel hard and unforgiving beneath me as it typically does. The life is being sucked out of me by the second.

"Yes, Father Lupin?"

"Get your head out of the clouds. You have missed half the lesson."

I try harder to focus, bringing the scarred, aged face of the priest into a clearer picture. What must his life have been like to cause such pronounced signs of aging? He cannot be far from my own father's age, yet  _his_  face is smooth, unlined. Father Lupin appears to have lived through the worst sufferings of any man alive. Is this what my future holds? Will I, too, appear so much older than my years? Does the grief and guilt of thousands of confessionals manifest itself in such a physical presence on the man who hears them? Will becoming a link between the people and God prove so fatal to my looks?

Am I shallow enough to let that actually bother me?

"My apologies, Father."

"Do you require private time, Brother Malfoy?"

Slowly, I pan my gaze across the room, focusing on the small alcove set off on one side of the pulpit.

"Yes, Father. I believe I do."

If Theodore were not so perfect, he would have flinched, I am certain. I have never offered to spend more time on my knees than is strictly necessary, but I feel the urge today. Perhaps the Lord will assist me in clearing my mind.

For once.

_Blasphemer._

The title seems to follow me around, even in my thoughts, as I rise from the pew and move to the private place for prayer. There is a single stained glass window facing east, and the morning sun is sending a kaleidoscope of colors onto the otherwise grey stone. The small rug that has been folded atop the kneeling stone isn't quite as soft as I hope, but it never is.

Prayer isn't meant to be done in comfort.

Dutifully, I clasp my hands together, rest my elbows on the small slab before me, lift my head up towards those rays of sun that would surely be warm were I outside in them as opposed to the cool detachment of this holy altar, and I close my eyes.

Praying aloud has always seemed foolish to me. If God can hear us at all, he can hear our thoughts.

 _Holy Father, who art in Heaven,_  I begin, sighing softly, _I could sorely use your help. If you are listening now, then I am certain you already know my problem. This girl…she has taken over my thoughts, Father. I barely saw her for an hour, and now she is all I can think about. Thoughts…thoughts I know I should not have as a man who serves in your army, who is wedded to your Church. I do not even know what I am praying for, Father, though if all my lessons are to be followed, it does not matter. You will do what you see is best, not necessarily supply me with what I request._

Insanity. That's what this is. How had the girl phrased it?

"… _whispering words to the sky, waiting for an answer that will never come."_

With my eyes closed, I could almost hear her voice; a sharp tone, intelligence like a whiplash in my ears. Almost disdainful, though not quite rude enough to be classified as so. There is no point in sitting here any longer. Even as I pray for relief from her, she fills my thoughts. A curse, an obsession. Unhealthy.

My forehead rests atop my clasped hands for just a moment as I pull several deep breaths into my lungs.

Genuflecting here on my knees is bringing me no relief. No peace has been found, not that I really expected to be rewarded with something when I deserve nothing. I can almost feel the darkness of my thoughts tainting the very room in which I sit. The altar's shadows that stretch along the floor seem to deepen, thicken, stretch across to the door. The soft tones of Father Lupin are no longer the typical, stern yet kind tenor, but a sharp, condescending baritone. Even my heart seems to grow heavier in my chest, weighing down towards my stomach.

This is not working. What I need more than anything else is some fresh air, but I am afraid.

I am afraid of seeing her again.

But I want to see her again so badly it  _hurts_.

Slowly, I rise to my feet, and without a word, I move through the sanctuary and out the door. It is only when I am halfway towards the bench that I pause. Something about this place seems off now. Something here, even in this beautiful and peaceful place, has been contaminated. My eyebrows furrow as I sit down, feeling as if I am sinking further and further into a mistake. I do not know why it should bother me so much; it is not as if she has been back to the church since the spiteful words I spat at her.

I have scared away a nonbeliever. Instead of helping her, keeping my composure, and bringing her like a lost lamb to the Lord, I inflicted verbal lashes that will keep her away. Guilt boils in my gut, warring with anger. Such a sinful emotion.

My hands are pale as I fold them in my lap, a startling contrast to the black of my robes.

Guilt. Anger. Shame.

I suppose it does not matter any longer. She is gone, and she will not come back - that I am certain of. Why would she? She does not believe, and her only experience here was improper and infuriating.  _I_  would not come back, were I her.

Lost in my thoughts, I do not know how long I have been sitting when I hear the faintest creak. It is, unmistakably, the sound of an iron grate opening slowly, hesitantly. Unsure. Almost afraid to look, but more curious and proud than afraid, I lift my eyes.

There she stands.

One hand grips the top of the gate, the other rests loosely at her side. She is still wearing the uniform of the university, and though they are designed to look clean and simple, she makes them look breathtaking. It is supremely unfair. I have seen countless women walk into the church, in their Sunday best, hair and make-up styled to perfection, and yet not a single one of them has taken my attention as she has. Her hair is pulled back this time, those wild curls in a band of some sort, yet strands still sneak out and frame her face; they set off the shades of her eyes in such an immaculate way that it burns my very soul. Her eyes are moving, constantly shifting as she looks at me, and I straighten my spine in an effort to not appear lacking or uncertain.

I endeavor in that moment to be the most polite, diligent, and mannered priest to which she has ever spoken. I will make up for the things in which I lacked the previous meeting. If for no other reason than to make myself believe that I am a real brother of the cloth. For a priest, a true priest, would not have such thoughts of a woman. A true, good priest would offer her assistance in a holy manner, and nothing more.

Silence passes between us, but it is so full of words that it hardly seems to be silent at all. It is full. Bloated. Bursting.

My heart leaps into my throat and takes up new residence there as she steps forward. The gate swings shut as her hand falls from it, and she jumps slightly at the noise, eyes tightening in the barest of winces.

_And when he came to the place, he said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation."_

Ironic, is it not, that I can never remember my verses when facing Father Lupin, yet here, in the most inopportune time, I can recall them perfectly?

She stands before me now, chestnut eyes guarded, lips pressed tightly together, hands a little  _too_  relaxed where they hang beside her thighs.

"Brother Malfoy."

I rise to my own feet, the movement fluid and sure.

"Miss Granger."

Does she hear the longing? The regret? Is my impudent rage evident in the syllables of her name as they fall, like the sweetest poison, from my lips? My tongue burns as I wait for her to say something, anything, but she does not oblige. I stare into her eyes, searching, seeking. There are questions there, yet I cannot pull them from her in verbal form. Not this girl. It is frustrating beyond belief, but she must tell them to me on her own.

_Priest. Be a priest._

"I must confess, I did not think to see you again." Her eyes tighten just the slightest. "If I may ask," I bring my hands together before me as I incline my head towards her, "what brings you back to the Church?"


	5. Chapter 5

I fear she won't respond. I fear that, when she does, it will be nothing but harsh words and retribution for my own mistakes the last time we spoke.

I should not be afraid. I should be able to look her in the eye as a man of God and lead her towards the light of His salvation, but that fear is a living thing in my gut, squirming and twisting around inside me, distracting me.

"I wanted to apologize, Brother Malfoy."

Her voice is certain, sure. I am momentarily taken aback. Of all the things I expected to hear from her, an apology was not one of them. Impossibly, infuriatingly, it warms my heart to her presence all the more. There should be no warmth in my chest, no pounding of that muscle that hides so cowardly behind the bars of its cage. When I look at Hermione, I should see nothing but a lost lamb in need of the Heavenly Shepherd.

Instead, I see a beautiful woman with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. I see a breathtaking form and eyes as welcoming and unforgiving as the sea. She is a contrast so alluring, so destructive that my mouth forgets how to shape words. My tongue forgets how to push consonants past my teeth. And all the verses in the Bible flow swiftly from my memory. All the things I was going to say about starting over, the way I was going to convince her with my prose that God is real, that we owe our souls to Him, and that I will gladly be the one to show her His truth have completely disappeared. Instead, I can only manage one sentence, and it is not even a response to her own statement.

"Will you walk with me?"

She stares at me for a moment. A moment in which I am certain she is about to scowl and spurn me again, before she is nodding. As before, we begin to walk around the small, stone path that encircles the garden.

This time, there is a different sort of tension between us, and one that I find not altogether unpleasant. It is thick and sharp, but it soothes me. It soothes, because it is like nothing I have ever felt. There is no tension between myself and the other Brothers of the Cloth. There is only the expected obedience. The Brotherhood breeds servants, not contestants.

After all, we are all alike in the eyes of our Savior, are we not?

Hidden beneath my robes, my fingers tap out an unsteady rhythm against my forearms. It counters the constant beat of my feet on the pavement.  _Contrast_.

"I appreciate your willingness to take this step towards righting the wrong between us, but it is I who should be apologizing, Miss Granger." Her eyes are sharp as they flick towards me, and though I do not meet her gaze, I can feel them studying my face with a shrewdness that would equal that of Father Lupin when he knows I have not been paying attention to his lecture.

"Hm."

"It is true. I was disrespectful and beyond poor in my representation of the Church. I beseech you - forgive me?"

Slowly, her eyes leave mine, moving, instead, to gaze upon the ground. Her head, however, does not change its tilt. There is nothing demure about the expression. Nothing sad. Nothing but introspection as she watches our feet move in tandem across the stone.

I am holding my breath.

"So like a priest to ask for forgiveness, isn't it?" Her hands slide into the pockets of her jacket. "And so like a Catholic to shoulder guilt that doesn't belong to him."

"Au contraire, the only guilt I shoulder is my own, Miss Granger, I simply -"

"Hermione."

A single, blond eyebrow rises high up my forehead as I cant my head at an angle, peering over at her.

"Pardon?"

"Don't call me Miss Granger. It's far too…"

"Proper?"

A smirk tilts my lips - such a sinful expression - but she does not seem to mind, nor even notice, as the slightest of blushes colors her cheeks the most beautiful shade of pink I have ever seen.

"Formal is the word I was searching for, Brother Malfoy."

"Draco."

Now, she lifts her head, her eyes almost too big for her face with the wide-eyed countenance she turns upon me. An arsenal of expression is at her disposal, and I am realizing a moment too late that I am doomed.

"My name is Draco. If I am calling you by your Christian name, then you will use mine."

"Speaking of proper…isn't that against some Church-y rule?"

"Since when does a self-pronounced heathen follow the rules of the Church?"

God save me, but this is a dangerous game, and one I fear I will lose.

This tête-à-tête will not end on a good note. How can it? She is too much of a storm for my calm shores to weather, and I am too much involved in my studies for her broad mind to constrict around. Friends I can have, and friends I have kept close before, but none like  _her_.

"Self-pronounced? That seems a bit of an interesting additive, Brother Malfoy."

"Only because I refuse to admit you are something I do not believe you to be."

The click of her heels is the only sound I hear for several minutes, and I ache to fill that silence, to determine if it is colored with disdain, disgust, or perhaps just disappointment.

"You're as stubborn as those televangelists, you know that?" A soft sigh passes her lips, one I wish I could swallow and keep. Something as secret and sacred as the rose that lies pressed and dried between two pages of a book the girl who dropped it would never touch.

"Televangelists are only concerned with money, Hermione. Nothing more. Their faith is a façade. They insult those of us who truly believe and truly wish to bring others into the light of the Lord."

"Christianity has such a bad rap in so many ways. I only wanted to apologize for assuming that you were as empty-headed and shallow as the 'big wigs' that seem to represent your faith…and for storming out like a child who lost her temper."

The feeling that wells inside me is not one that I care to dwell upon, because I cannot be feeling these things for her. So what if she is lovely to look upon? So what if her mind is a whet stone for my own? So what if she is the only girl that has turned my head in such a way since I was a boy freshly donning my robes? I have made my vows, and breaking them is not something I take lightly. My life, my entire existence, is based upon the Church, and that is how it must stay. That is how my father wants it. That is how it is expected.

"I assure you, Hermione," oh, but I love to say her name, "no apology is necessary. My behavior was so far removed from how it should have been, that I can hardly call myself a Brother of the Cloth at all."

A flutter of movement catches my eye, and I shift my gaze to the right. There, at a window facing the garden, stands Theodore. The expression on his face is guarded, as ever. The world could be ending around him, and Theo would not bat an eye. Still, I feel his thoughts nudging at my own brain, it seems. He is not judging - not ever - but he is concerned.

Does he know how weak I am?

Does  _she?_

I tear my gaze from his before the shame flushing my chest can creep up the front of my throat. He does not understand. He told me he did, and I want so badly to believe him, but how could Theodore ever understand the pulls of the flesh when he has never placed a single toe out of line? How could he possibly know the way Hermione tugs at my heart with her hands never leaving her pockets? Her voice alone is enough to have me yearning to forsake my vows, to divest myself of these robes - so heavy with the spiritual and metaphysical burdens they place upon me - and to leave this place without once looking back.

Even during our personal confession, when I unloaded my deepest thoughts to Theo, and when I told him that I was having impure thoughts of a woman, he did not judge. He sat before me, his eyes open and honest. He reached out, resting a hand on my shoulder in the most comforting of gestures. He told me he understood the urge to become part of the secular world. He assured me I was not the first, nor would I be the last, priest to desire things outside of the walls of the Church.

His concern cuts deeper than any words of admonishment ever would. And I can feel the concern in the dark eyes that watch me as I walk with Hermione through the garden. It is the absence of that weight that lets me know he is no longer there.

"I antagonized you."

I blink, pulling my thoughts from the guilt swirling in my brain to the woman beside me. I must redeem myself. I must redeem myself by saving her soul.

"You did not."

Eyebrows the burnished color of polished oak draw down towards her eyes as she nearly glares up at me. "I did, so stop making excuses for me. Allow me to seek my own form of atonement, okay?" Her tongue might as well be a whip. I relish in the pain.

"So long as you, too, allow me to seek mine."

"The difference, Draco," oh, how my heart bursts into pieces when she says my name, "is that you don't need to seek any atonement. I pushed you, and I asked you questions I knew would get under your skin. It is, unfortunately, something in which I excel."

"You are incredibly smart and logical, Hermione, and you force me to think outside of the walls I have been kept inside my entire life. How could you possibly think you need forgiveness for that?"

She sighs, and it is a heavy sound that I know all too well. It is the same sigh that tumbles past my own lips when I awake in the morning and feel the fresh day's burdens upon my shoulders. The same sigh I have sighed since I was a boy. Being in the service of the Church might be good for my soul, but it does a number on my mind.

"I need forgiveness for many things, Draco." Her voice is so quiet that I find myself leaning closer to hear her. A nervousness weeps from her skin. It drops from her pores and slides down her neck, the slender column of her throat. I cannot tell the seriousness of her statement. Does she truly want to attend a confessional? Is she merely playing with her words again?

"Hermione, I…"

"But the worst part is…" We have reached the gate again, and she comes to a stop. My heart leaps into my throat, choking off the plea to stay that has begun to form. "…I don't care." Large eyes look up at me, dark lashes casting tiny shadows on her cheeks. I notice a small spattering of freckles across her nose, and I realize just how close she is to me, now. "I don't care that I am a sinner. I don't care that some of the things I do are against God. That some things I feel are deemed deplorable by others."

My heartbeat quickens, and I can feel it all the way to my ears. It is the rushing sound of the tide coming in, as swift and deadly as the sea.

My own, silvered eyes stare down into the chestnut depths below them, and I do not know what it is I see there, but it, in equal measure, terrifies and thrills me.

"Hermione…"

_Tell her to attend the service in the morning. Remind her that a Father is always around to hear her confession. Let her know that the things she says does not mean she is damned._

My mind screams at me, but it is muted all the same. It is hardly audible at all over the soft breaths that leave her lips and drift up to me in the still air. I breathe them in, pulling in each of her breaths into my own lungs, as if I can somehow conserve the essence of her within myself in this way.

"I don't care, Draco." She is shaking, but only slightly. Tremors lace through the muscles of her fingers where they rest at her sides.

"I don't care."

And then she is moving, and the last syllable of her dismissive phrase is caught between her lips and mine where they meet. Her eyes have slammed shut, but I cannot close my own. I cannot miss a single moment of this, because her hair is wild and free in the dimming light of evening, and the sun's rays barely touch on it here, turning the oaken shades to a blazing auburn; because her skin is soft and sweet this close to my gaze, and I can see every pore and it is beautiful; because her lips are as sweet as honey and as poisonous as the apple in the garden; because this is my Eve, and I am Adam, and I have tasted the fruit and found it sweet.

Then, before I have fully appreciated the warmth of her against me, and before I have even begun to understand what has happened, she is pulling back, and I am stepping away, and her eyes are wide with horror, and her fingers touch her lips - how I wish they were mine, instead - and she is turning her back to me - fleeing the garden.

There is no apology as she reaches for the gate. Her hands are now shaking so badly she can hardly work the clasp. I stand, motionless, and whether it is from shock or awe, I do not know.

I cannot tell her to stay away, and I cannot beg her to return. I am stuck in this limbo, this godforsaken place, and I know not what to do.

"Hermione, wait."

My voice is soft, but stern. She pauses on the other side of the gate, her hands still wrapped around the wrought-iron bars that keep this place so sacred when the world around is not.

"Don't go. Don't go like this."

She shakes her head.

"I won't be the reason you fall, Draco. I won't be the one to clip your wings and damn you to this earth. If you want to see me again, you know where I'll be." Her hands drop from the bars and smooth down the uniform from the school across the way.

She turns without waiting on a response, and is gone before I can voice a reason for her to remain.

My lips are tingling, and I lift my fingers up in memory of Hermione's own action, touching at them. Has my vow been broken? Have I forsaken the church in this single act of selfishness? One that I did not start, but one that I did not stop, either?

In a whirl of robes, I turn and swiftly move away from the garden. The knowledge of the deed is all over my face, I am certain, and any passing priest will smell the guilt on me, will see the dark spot on my soul.

_"_ _Theodore!"_

His name is bursting from my lips before I am even fully inside our room, but I freeze on the threshold, one hand held ridiculously in the air where I have pushed open the door, the other still lifted to my mouth.

Theodore sits at his desk, but there is no open Bible on the surface. No notebook lies open beside him filled with his musings and notations, and instead of a pen in his hand…there is a bottle.

A bottle of pills.

His face, as impassive and detached as ever, lifts towards me.

"Good evening, Brother."

 


	6. Chapter 6

It's the rattle of the bottle that he can't stand.

It plagues him, like the chattering teeth of a fanged demon, as a constant reminder of his road to Hell. The highway he took at breakneck speed with the prick of a needle. Theodore was so good at a lot of things in the life of a Priest-in-training. So well-practiced in the art of granting forgiveness to those that sought it from God through him, but he was no good at granting it to himself. Never had been.

Forgiveness was a luxury he could not afford, despite the mountains of money his family name had. The money that was tainted with his sins and would have bought him any demon that he chose. It bought him the demon that had possessed him for years. It bought him the demon that left him burning in its wake. And he would burn. He was burning still.

Burning with the acrid feeling of embarrassment that bubbled in his chest, because there his sins were in many shapes and sizes. Tiny pills, big pills, colored pills, and bleached pills. All lined up in a pretty row with a glass of water behind them waiting to aid their descent. He was still paying for his sins, and that was evident. Those little pills were the tips of his father's cat o' nine tails that used to lacerate his back. They were reminders that he was imperfect, and he was a failure.

Brother Malfoy had wanted to know what Theodore had to be ashamed of, and there was his shame.

“Good evening, Brother,” he voiced evenly, surprising himself.

Because, in that moment, he felt like words may be lost on his tongue. For the first time in his life, he felt like words would fail him, and his ready mind would seize around his tongue to keep it quieted. Theodore heard the bottle rattle in his hand before he realized that his hand was shaking, and he dropped the bottle in the open drawer without a second thought. He would not miss a beat. He would not crumble.

Like a good, suffering Catholic, he would do it with his tongue in his cheek and swallow whatever penance God felt was his to serve.

“Theodore,” Draco said, his voice shaken and meek.

Perhaps he felt he had walked in on something private, much like Theodore had felt when he had walked out onto the balcony to look at the gardens to find Draco there. There with a girl,  _the_  girl. He had walked in on that private moment, and he had felt a small pang of regret for it. Guilt had pinched and scraped at his core, because he was sharing in this sin, and for a moment, he found himself wishing Draco would fall.

Not fall. Rise.

Rise from this place, if that was what he wished, but that he did so without lying or hiding or damning this life to some kind of Hell. Theodore needed this life, because it would save his damnable soul from the fire. Surely. Hopefully.

“Don't look so shaken, Brother Draco,” Theodore said as he found his voice again.

A hand swept across the desk, gathering pill after pill in his palm, before he slapped his hand over his mouth. The bleached, bitter pills bloomed on his tongue to leave a sour taste. The capsule stuck to the roof of his mouth and tasted no better than the others. Theodore took a large gulp of the water, allowing it to slosh about in his mouth before he swallowed forcefully. The taste of those pills was still there.

“What are -,” Draco bit his tongue and looked away when Theodore took another drink from his glass. “I -..”

“Spit it out.”

“You..”

He was helpless. Theodore should have known, but he merely waited for Draco to catch up.

For all his faults, Draco Malfoy had endeared himself to Theodore Nott. Many years of knowing of one another, but never _knowing_ one another, and then coming to this place. Here they were bound together by some strange stroke of fate that put them in the same room. It was a stroke of luck that Theodore had never bothered to ponder, because surely he would have left this place if he had not been here with Draco.

The blond boy was his mirror, despite the drastic differences in physical appearance. There was so much about the two of them that was similar that, when Theodore looked at Draco, he could see those faults and cracks in the other boy; and he knew that he had the same. Draco Malfoy was a map of cracks and crevices, and Theodore Nott was learning to fill them in so that neither of them would shatter to pieces.

He liked to think they made each other better. Maybe he was wrong.

Maybe they were dooming each other. Twin anchors in an unstoppable descent.

Theodore observed Draco in the way his brow pinched together with uncertainty and the way his bottom lip jutted out just enough to make him wonder if Draco might actually start crying in his frustration. The discontent on his features was only amplified by his disheveled blond hair and the rumpled state of his black button-down. Creases were unsightly to Theodore, but that was mostly because he was impeccable about such trivial things. They helped him feel in control when so many things had been so out of his control before he entered the Order. But with Draco, the creases only made Theodore adore him more.

_Adore?_  Theodore shook his head against that word, because it was too intimate, too intrusive, too  _honest._

He looked away without a lingering thought and finished off the rest of his water, the cool liquid taken in an attempt to snuff out the burning sensation of something more in his chest. The emotion fluttered like a bird with a clipped wing before it was gone.

“You're sick.”

“Astute observation,” Theodore teased with no true malice or intent on his tongue, “but no sicker today than I was yesterday.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“We all have our burdens to bear. Like yours. Would you share your burdens? Would you share  _her?_ ”

Color flushed Draco's pale cheeks, and there was a flicker of something dark and jagged behind those gray eyes. Theodore saw jealousy sway like a King Cobra ready to strike, but he was so used to dancing with serpents that he didn't even bat a lash at the way Draco looked at him. He merely remained holding his gaze until he saw Draco shrink slightly, even as he let out a deep sigh of discontent. There was something bone-wrenching about the sigh. It was as if Draco were shrugging off a great weight so that Theodore may shoulder it, and he did without pause.

“I messed up,” Draco whispered so softly that Theodore barely heard him.

“I have a feeling you coined that phrase.”

“Now is not the time for your quips.”

Theodore had to agree. It was his sharp tongue that had gotten him in trouble. In fact, it was the most sinful thing about him - that tongue. He sighed. It wasn't very priestly of him to act this way. He recited the Lord's Prayer in his head and slowly sealed up the cracks in his perfect facade before turning his brown eyes back to Draco.

_Be kind. Be selfless. Be understanding._

Those words meant so much to him, because he had never known any of those things in his childhood. He had never met a person that could be any of those things at any given point. So, now he would practice what he had sorely lacked when growing up.

“What happened?” Theodore asked calmly.

“I -” Draco started and stopped before starting again. “She kissed me.”

The heat of jealousy prickled in his throat, but Theodore kept his face even and his eyes open despite his yearning to pull away. Life in this order meant he would never enjoy such affections, and he was okay with that. He had been dying to throw himself onto the crucifix when he was first brought here, but then Draco. Sweet, stupid Draco. Theodore forced his thoughts back into the priestly realm where they were meant to reside. He had no reason to be jealous. Adoration or not, everything that he was was meant for God. No one else.

“Say something, would you?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything! Just tell me I'm horrid, and I'm a sinner, and I deserve to burn for this!” Draco was practically screaming, and Theo flinched, because it was too loud. “Tell me I told you so.”

Oh, how he wished that he could, because those words would taste so sweet on his tongue.

They would taste sweeter than anything he had ever had, because it would be _him_ wielding the sharp words meant to maim. He would be the one with all the power, instead of feeling absolutely powerless, but he could not say it. He could not harm this young man. There was no way he could ever hurt him. Not ever.

“No,” Theo sighed, “I won't tell you those things.”

“But she kissed me, and I wanted to kiss her back.”

He swallowed thickly and closed his eyes a moment. “But you didn't?”

“I wanted to. I wanted to kiss her more than I have ever wanted anything.”

“Ah,” he laughed to himself. “Sins taste so much sweeter than anything else. Like candy.”

“So, you agree that she is my damnation?”

“No, I don't agree with you.”

Draco let out a pained sigh that was torn between relief and discomfort. So much said in that fragile sound, but so much more said in the way he sagged against the door frame, the weight of the world resting on his narrow and brittle shoulders. The weight of his world; a world he had never lived outside of, because he never had to. Why would he? They were the sons of fortune born with silver spoons in their mouths. What did either of them know of the hardship of any worlds outside their own?

Theodore liked to think he knew suffering, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was wrong for trying to guide Draco into this world so that he could hide within these stone walls. Perhaps he was meant to break out of it, and maybe the church was not his salvation. Maybe his salvation would come in the form of a girl with bushy brown hair and freckled cheeks. Maybe.

“What do I do?” Draco begged now. “Tell me what to do.”

“Forgive yourself. That's where you start, but beyond that, I cannot guide you.”

“You can't? Or you won't?”

He laughed again. It was a hollow, mirthless sound. It ricocheted around his chest like a stray bullet and embedded in his heart. The pain was severe enough to make him think twice about his next words, but whatever hell he was headed for he would not think to bring Draco with him. Not him. Not ever.

Now on his feet, Theodore moved closer to Draco and just studied his face with deliberate slowness. Drinking him in, and realizing that he was damned. Damned for wanting something he could never have. All of this was a prison of his own making.

The bible served as a press to crush any desires outside the realm of normality. The white collar served to leash him to the beliefs that had been shoved down his throat all of his life. The rosary was the thing that bound his idle hands so that he would not touch what would damn him. The church was his tomb to keep his demons contained.

The sauce was easy to give up, but the desire was not. Even now.

Theodore put on a delicate smile that might have shattered to pieces if Draco pushed him too hard, but he knew that he wouldn't.

“I can't, and you know why?”

Draco shook his head. Oblivious as ever.

“Because then I would be a hypocrite, for I've not learned to forgive myself for my own sins.”

He gave Draco's shoulder a soft squeeze and slipped past him out of that room. He needed to be anywhere that didn't smell like Draco and where those pills did not rattle in a closed drawer. 


	7. Chapter 7

Father Lupin has stopped asking me to perform Morning Prayer. If any of the other Brothers notice, none have said a word. I simply cannot bring myself to speak these little week-day words of blessing and peace when my heart is in such turmoil.

Theo has not mentioned his sickness again, and I have the grace enough, at least in this, to not ask, but I can feel the weight of the knowledge of it pressing down on me like the walls of this very building are hovering just over my head, prone to drop and crush me at any given moment. I do not know how to handle this news, because I know, now, what sickness ails him. That many bottles, and the shame in his face when I saw him take those pills…I know exactly the poison that courses through his veins as his own cells turn against him.

Created in the likeness of God, but riddled with the failings of an all-too-mortal casing.

How unfair.

There is that word again, plaguing my thoughts, casting my soul in an even deeper shadow than before. I know exactly why our bodies betray us, and I know why we suffer. Yet, every time I lift my rosary to place it around my neck, the soft sound of the beads brushing against each other is far too similar to the fatal sound of pills rattling in a plastic bottle - and my concentration slips again.

I should be paying attention. The Bible and its teachings have never been more important to my salvation than they are right now, but again, my eyes drift. To the altar. To the candles. To their flames. To the stained glass windows. To the pews. To the back of Theodore’s head. To Father Lupin’s eyes. There is something there, some understanding that urges my chest to squeeze around my heart. I have not said a word of Theo’s ailment to anyone, nor will I betray his confidence like that, but I want to. I want to confess the hidden knowledge. I want to tell Father Lupin about those bottles of pills. I want to tell him about the rose pressed in the midst of the Song of Solomon in the Bible that rests on my lap.

I want to run out of the Church and never return.

_Hermione Granger._

The Brothers around me have begun to sing whichever hymn Father Lupin has chosen for this morning, but my own mouth does not move. My vocal chords are not up to celebrating the love of a God who has never seemed more distant, faceless, and cold.

From their voices, I can easily pick out Theo’s. He has always had such a lovely baritone - just another thing that has consistently made me envious; my own tenor is not nearly as rich, nor as melodious. We have sung together many times, complementing each other in this as we do so many other aspects of this life, but today, his voice only reminds me of a song bird who knows the Spring must end soon, and so sings his last song with the kind of fervor that leaves all the listeners in awe, while keeping them none the wiser of his upcoming demise.

It is too much.

To add another sin to my long list of transgressions for the month, I abruptly slip through the other Brothers in my pew and make my way, without a single spoken word, towards the back of the sanctuary. I pause only long enough to look at Father Lupin apologetically before I am leaving the building completely, and as I flee, I am haunted by the image I saw just before the cathedral doors closed behind me:

Father Lupin looking on sadly, nodding his head once in understanding of my sudden flight, while closer to me - so much closer and yet infinitely farther away - Theodore turns, the darkness of his eyes brimming with emotion that I cannot fathom.

\------------------

I often forget what it is like to be out in the world away from the perceived safety of the Church walls.

The patrons of the public transit do not look at me with nearly as much interest as I anticipated, but then again, St. Salazar’s is such a large part of the city that they are probably accustomed to seeing Brothers and Sisters of Christ out and about. I forget that not every Brother stays within the walls as much as I do, though even I get out more than Theodore.

 _Theodore_.

I swallow hard and divert my gaze to the window. The bright sun of the afternoon doesn’t quite reach me where I stand in the aisle, clinging to a strap from the ceiling. Though there are plenty of seats, I would never presume to sit - just in case. Humility was not bred into me, nor was it beaten into me as the marks on Theodore’s back speak of it being beaten into him, but it has been nurtured. Through the sinister words that sometimes slip past the barrier of my teeth, and through the pride and sarcasm that flow through my veins, I _have_ become a man of the cloth.

I _have_.

It is that certainty that I seek today on this impromptu trip. The sanctuary slips farther and farther away as the bus speeds on. The college has slid past without my glancing at it - maybe miracles _do_ exist. I am going farther away from the city, until the rolling hills of the western side of town come into view. The bus comes to a slow stop, and I move smoothly and quickly past the other patrons, stopping to lay a hand on a woman’s shoulder who clutches at my robe, murmuring a soft supplication for her sick daughter for whom she beseeches me to pray.

I do not have the heart to tell her that the prayers of a damned priest must surely mean as little to God as the agonized cries of those whom he has doomed to burn eternally.

My fingers move in the sign of the cross over the woman before I make my way out of the bus and onto the street. The cobblestones beneath my feet feel as familiar as the collar around my neck, but in the same way as my shadow resembles me, but is absent of the details, the nuances that make me who I am. These streets were me, once, when I was a child, and I was as yet unaware of the plans God had for me. Now, as I walk down them, it is only nostalgia that flutters around my chest, nothing else.

In fact, it isn’t until I look up at the Manor in which my family resides that I feel anything else, and even then, it is fleeting.

Jealousy?

Pride?

Resentment?

_Sin, sin, sin._

My hands take up their normal residences in my sleeves as I move up the long, winding drive to the front door. I could have rang in at the gate for someone to pick me up, but I have always enjoyed the walk through the grounds. They are beautiful, for all their ostentatious splendor.

_Mark 10:25 - It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God._

Unbidden, the verse floats to my mind, and it is just humorous enough to make me chuckle. My family has given more wealth than most to the church, tithing more than their ten percent, not to mention dedicating their first-born son, but still, these expansive grounds, this gigantic house…we are urged to discard such worldly possessions as these, yet my father clutches to his wealth with the hands of a miser.

I stop and stare up at the façade of the Manor. I forget how huge it is, how much space it seems to take up when one stands so very close to it. From memory, I know that Theodore comes from a house larger than mine, but he does not seem to miss it as much as I miss mine sometimes - the sins of the father become the sins of the son, do they not? Then again, perhaps it is not the house that Theodore does not miss…but the people within it.

Sadness wraps around my torso, tightening until I find it hard to breathe. That such a good man must suffer so…

_Christ suffered more._

The loud ringing of the doorbell chases away my thoughts as it chases after someone to answer the door, echoing off the marble floors and decorated walls. My eyes slide closed as I listen, because in my mind, I can still see myself as the spoiled, little blond boy I once was, a boy who both wanted to run rambunctiously to the door and yet look with disdain at whoever thought they deserved his company.

I expect a servant to answer, but it is the woman I have come here to see that greets me.

“Draco!” Her voice is breathless with surprise, and her eyes - a brilliant shade of blue - brighten noticeably. She sweeps her gaze up and down me one time before opening her arms and pulling me into a tight hug. Normally, I deign to maintain my decorum in these situations, but today I haven’t the strength. Willingly, I go into her arms, my own slipping free of my sleeves to clasp around her slender frame.

“Mother,” I breathe into her shoulder as her grip around me tightens.

We embrace for much longer than is strictly proper, but I haven’t the slightest care for that, either. There are times in life when a son needs his mother’s arms around him, no matter how old, no matter his path.

“Come in, Draco. Come in and talk to me.”

The large door swings shut with a small puff of air behind us, and I am facing my childhood home. I have not returned here in years. Not because I can’t, but simply because it is too hard. I struggle with the separation from the secular world more than my other Brothers. The comforts of my home are long from forgotten, and, if anything, plague me more than most other things I have sacrificed for the Church.

Well, until _recently_.

“Oh, look at you. You have grown so much since I last saw you!”

I smile at her, though I know by the look of concern that flashes across her features that the smile does not quite reach my eyes.

“What is wrong?”

I shake my head as a flash of movement catches my eye.

It is my father.

“Well, if it isn’t my son.” There is a smile on his face, and I know, now, how my mother knows happiness does not dwell in my heart. My father’s eyes, the exact same shade of gray as my own, are cold and unforgiving as they view me, despite the façade of happiness that decorates his mouth. The hand that clasps my shoulder is warm, but the fingers do not squeeze hard enough to display fatherly affection. “What brings you here, so far from the Church?”

I look at my mother before I answer, “I only wished to stop by for a visit. Is it an inappropriate time?”

“Of course not!” My mother intervenes, all calm tone and smiling words, gesturing with her hands for me to follow her. “Milly was just about to place dinner, I do believe.” My heart constricts. I have no desire to eat food prepared by servants in this lavish home. Not tonight. It would only kindle the trouble in my chest, not smother it.

“Yes, Draco. Come and eat. We will have to set another place as we have another guest.”

An eyebrow lifts as I follow my insistent mother into the dining room. “Another…?” It takes all the years of composure I have learned at the church to not come to a stop as I see who sits at the table, sipping a glass of deep-red wine.

“Mr. Nott, a pleasure.” I look up at my mother surreptitiously as I incline my head towards the dark-headed man, but she is smiling politely. I must have fooled even her with the pleasantness of my tone.

“Draco, what a surprise. I trust you are well?”

I nod as I take a seat beside my mother, wishing fervently I could have the wine placed before me. _My body is a temple._ If only others respected the bodies of priests as much as we must respect them ourselves.

“And my son? How is Theodore? From what I understand, the two of you share a room.”

Malice. I feel malice in his tone, and I only wish I could shred him with my tongue as he has shredded the flesh of his son’s back with a whip.

“Theodore is well, Mr. Nott. He has taken well to the life of a Brother of the Cloth. Much more than I, I am afraid.” I smile - a light joke, though there are no jokes that do not hold some nugget of truth within them. I wonder, though, does Charles know the sickness that plagues his son? Would he even care? “Latin comes as naturally to him as English, and he often leads the hymns when we sing.”

Charles’ fingers tighten just slightly around his glass, and I wonder that no one else notices such things. “I always knew he had a good head on his shoulders.”

“Yes, but his true strength is his humility, almost as if he was born to be selfless.”

My mother places her glass back on the table slightly louder than is strictly necessary, and when I look up into Charles’ eyes, there is a fury there. The irises blaze with anger that plays at being righteous. Impotent rage, Father Lupin calls it. The rage of a man who cannot change his fate, but rails with his fists at the sky, anyway.

“If you’ll excuse me, I should wash my hands before I partake in this lovely dinner.”

I scoot back from the table and exit the room as swiftly as I can. So much weighs heavily on my mind that it is a wonder I can remember my way to the bathroom at all. Muscle memory takes over as I wind through the halls and towards the guest wash room. There is a second set of feet on my heels, and I whirl around in the dimness of the corridor, expecting to find myself face to face with a seething Charles Nott. Instead, it is the pale face of my mother that greets me, and I feel myself slump against the wall in surrender to the turmoil of things inside me.

She is there, immediately, her arms stronger than they possibly can be as they wrap around my shoulders, and she sinks slowly with me to the floor.

“Oh, Draco, my baby, my son. What is wrong? What can I do?” Her fingers are sure as they stroke my face, pushing blond strands off my forehead.

“Mother,” I choke out past the sobs that threaten.

I have never felt more like a coward than I do in this moment.

“Mother, I cannot do this.”

“Do what, my love?”

I gesture towards my robes.

“ _This._ I am a failure. A sinner. I do not deserve to don these robes, to clutch this rosary.” I tug at it in near-disgust, wishing I could break it and fling it away from my skin, surprised that I do not catch fire every day when I place it around my neck. “I am a charlatan. I am no more a Brother of the Cloth than a harlot who walks the streets. I try. I pray, and I seek, and I attempt to help others on their path towards Heaven, but I have strayed so far from my own that I can no longer see it through the thicket of transgressions in which I have lost myself.” Tears are flowing freely down my cheeks now, and I am ashamed.

But even Jesus wept.

“Draco, listen to me.” Her fingers are soft as they wipe the tears from my cheeks, yet her grip is strong when she clasps my face between her palms and forces me to hold her gaze. “You are not a failure or a charlatan. You have been chosen to walk this path for a reason. The path of a righteous man of God is not an easy one. The world is full of doubt, sin, and trials. Everywhere you look you will find a reason to lose faith in yourself and in God, but you must not let that happen. You are _strong_ , Draco. I raised you. I _know_ you. The heart that beats in your chest was made from the one that beats in mine. You were fashioned by God in His image, but also to take after myself and your father.” I close my eyes as her words wash over and through me. “Often times, it is only when we have truly become lost that God shows us how to find ourselves. You are going through troubles now, Draco, but you will not always feel this way. God will show you the way. God will bring you back to your path and with a new understanding and stronger faith.”

I want to believe her. I want more than _anything_ to believe her, but I can’t. I just sit there instead, eyes closed, focusing on evening out my breathing and calming myself down. I am silent for I don’t know how many moments, sitting in the hallway with my mother.

“There is a girl, isn’t there?”

Her voice breaks the silence. My eyes flick open, wide and wary.

“There _is_.” Then, out of all the things she could do, she _smiles._ “I am not surprised, Draco. You are a young man. It is only natural for you to want things.” My cheeks flush crimson, and I look away from her, staring into the depths of the hall. “Have you acted on your desires?”

“What? No! Of course not!”

She smiles again, softer. “No?”

“W-Well, I didn’t do anything…”

“Tell me what happened.”

And I do. I tell her of the first time I saw Hermione. I tell her of the conversation that frustrated and angered me. I tell her of Hermione’s wit, her intelligence that flashes in her dark brown eyes. I tell her of the way the freckles are spread evenly across her nose and the tops of both cheeks. I tell her of the rose and how I have kept it pressed like a sacrilegious talisman in the pages of my Bible. I tell her of the second time I saw Hermione. I tell her of breathless expectations. I tell her of how her scent floats to me on the air like I am meant to inhale her. I tell her of the way the college looms so oppressively on one side of the garden while the church stands like a monument to all my sinful thoughts on the other.

I tell her of the kiss.

I tell her of how I wanted it to continue, of how I wanted to press back against Hermione’s lips with every fiber of my being.

I tell her of how I cannot possibly be saved.

I do not tell her of Theo.

When I am breathless from my telling, and we have both proceeded to sit cross-legged in the corridor next to each other, her hand on my knee, my hand atop hers, I finally stop speaking.

I have not said so much in one sitting since I joined the church.

Her fingers shift beneath mine until her palm presses against my own and her fingers lace through mine. She gives my hand a gentle squeeze.

“Draco, I need you to listen to me again.” I nod. “You have done nothing wrong.”

My tears have long since dried, and it is with a sardonic twist to my lips that I quip, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

“Sometimes, you remind me so much of your father.” I stiffen noticeably, and her hand slips from beneath mine to rest atop it instead, tracing her thumb over the back of my palm. “I only mean that the two of you can be the most self-deprecating men I have ever known. The heart wants what it wants, Draco. You are not going to Hell simply because you fancy a woman.”

“It is against everything I am supposed to feel, mother. I am wedded to the church.”

“Of course, you are, but you did not kiss her, Draco. She kissed you. From where I am sitting, I would say you have the restraint of a saint.”

She moves to stand, and I, reluctantly, join her.

“I am nowhere near a saint, but I do feel better having said these things aloud.”

“I am no priest to take your confession, Draco, but sometimes, I believe you need someone less condemning to tell your secrets to - someone who will listen without any sort of judgement.”

“Perhaps you are right.”

“I am.”

She smiles at me; I smile at her.

“Would it be terribly rude of me to sneak away without saying goodbye?”

She swats me gently on the shoulder. “It would. You do not have to stay for dinner, but you should, at least, tell your father goodbye.” She pauses for a beat. “He misses you.”

“He does not.”

“He _does_.” Her eyes sharpen slightly. “Whether or not his love is tough, it is still love. You are his first-born son, Draco, and though he knew he would have to dedicate you, it was no less heavy of a burden to give you away.”

“Perhaps, then, he should have shown his love in a way that was not liberally flavored with disappointment.” My arms return to my sleeves. It is a way to protect myself, to hide what I am thinking and feeling from those who should not see such emotions in me.

“Tell him goodbye for me, mother. I do not wish to impose upon his and Mr. Nott’s dinner.” Her eyes are sad as she looks up at me, her hand cupping my face.

“Alright, son. Have a safe trip back. Keep your heart light and your head held high.”

“I cannot hold my head too high, mother. Priests are meant to bow.”

She tsks softly. “Be that as it may, remember that God would not have put you on a path you were not strong enough to endure, and through the greatest trials often come the greatest triumphs.”

“That is just it, mother,” I say, my voice softening even further as I tug open the large door, “I am not seeking a triumph. I am only seeking to survive.” She smiles a bit sadly. “Tell me,” I pause with one foot out of the door, “what do you think God thought as He looked down to see Jesus on the cross, bathed in the sins of the world, just before He turned His back on His only begotten son?”

She shakes her head from one side to the other.

“Hard to imagine, isn’t it? It’s because, when you try, you see me being crucified, and you think, _what would make me ever turn my back so completely on my own son?_ But that’s the thing, mother. God’s love is supposed to be unconditional. His love is supposed to be beyond our comprehension. Yet even you, a mortal, fallible woman, wouldn’t string me up on a cross and turn your back on me, would you?”

“Draco, God’s ways are not for us -- ”

“To understand. Yes, I know.”

She takes a step out of the house, wraps her arms around her chest, and sighs softly as she says, “I know that this is all very frustrating for you, Draco. I knew this life would be hard for you as soon as I realized just how smart you were, but that is why you are perfect for it, don’t you see? You question things where no one else would. You have a hard time simply swallowing your lessons because you are meant to learn them. That is a _good_ thing in this day and age. And that girl? Hermione? She challenges you. That is why you covet her, Draco. She does to you what the church does not.” My mind churns with these bits of wisdom. I sometimes forget how perceptive my mother is. “Instead of seeking for satisfaction elsewhere, seek to make your life as a Brother of the Cloth satisfying. Your heart aches, because your soul is thirsty.”

I force a smile to my lips, and this time, my eyes do not remain quite as unmoved as they did the last. Maybe she is right. Maybe I am being too hard on myself.

But I only have to imagine that hair, those eyes, or those lips. I only have to see Hermione briefly in my mind’s eye before I am torn asunder all over again. Is this how David felt as he gazed upon Bathsheba bathing on the roof? Is this what it feels like to covet something that is not yours?

Unlike David, though, I will not take Hermione for my own. I will not claim her and lay with her, whether she is another man’s wife or not.

It is forbidden.

“Theodore says sins are sweet, like candy.”

“They are, my love. The devil has had nothing but time to craft sins into the finest of things to look upon and desire.”

I nod once.

“Goodbye, mother.” Out of habit, I perform the sign of the cross over her head and chest, smiling benignly. “I will light a candle for you and father upon my return, as always.”

It is by the grace of God alone that I am able to so easily turn and walk back down the sweeping drive towards the street below. I do not look back. I do not allow myself to gaze upon my mother’s worried face, for I can feel her stare on my shoulder blades all the way to the cobblestones. She speaks of strength, and though I believe what she says, I cannot help but wonder how much was spoken because she thought I needed to hear it, and how much was spoken because she truly meant it.

And as I light the candles later that night, once I am certain the cathedral has been empty for hours, I cast the same reflections on myself: how much of this life do I follow because I feel I should, and how much do I follow because I truly believe?

The flames accompany me into my dreams, for as I lie down that night, visions of flesh burned in eternal fire are traded interchangeably with the sweetest images of adultery I have ever seen.

And when I wake, I do not know if my skin is damp from the heat of Hell’s flames, or in memory of the heat of Hermione’s skin pressed flush to my own.


	8. Chapter 8

Theodore loved the church when it was empty. There was something comforting about the warm pew beneath him and the open space between him and God. It always made him feel more grounded when he was alone, because his demons were silent, and his mind was at ease.

This time, he was lost in prayer. The wooden rosary woven through his fingers, and a single bead pressed between two fingers, grounded him to this place. He could feel the sun pressing in through the stained-glass windows, so that it made the church feel warm, even though he could just make out the sound of rushing wind from the air vents. The silence was so thick that he could nearly hear his heart beating, and that was comforting. He was alive. He was still breathing.

He was so lost in prayer that he hadn't heard anyone enter the church. He hadn't noticed the groan of the pew when someone took a seat behind him. He hadn't heard the scratch of jeans against polished wood. He hadn’t heard the sound of the kneeler being pulled down, or the wood groan under the weight of a body. It wasn't until he felt hot breath against the back of his neck that he realized he was no longer alone.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. You see, I have these intensely graphic dreams about having sex in a confessional with this boy I used to know. It always starts the same: his clerical collar between my teeth like the sacrament.”

Heat crept into Theodore's hollow cheeks, and he felt color stain his skin as if he'd been slapped. The shame was evident on his face where the flush of his skin made it blotchy with red spots. Arousal zipped through his veins, lighting them on fire, before it settled low in his belly and burned brighter.

If the imagery wasn't enough to get under his skin, it was the voice that provided it. He would have known that voice in a symphony of them, because he memorized it in intimate moments - moments of passion that seared it into his memory.

His mouth was dry, and his skin prickled with excitement, but Theodore forced his head to clear so that his tongue didn't grow thick and lodge in his throat making him incapable of any other sound aside from a moan.

Many times over, Father Lupin had asked him why it was that he rarely saw Theodore mingling with people outside of the church, but Theodore had never had the courage to tell him. It was easier for him to fight his demons when he didn't have them staring back at him from a set of perfectly green eyes. It was easier for him to be the good Priest when he was not dealing with the people he had known from his previous life.

Truth was that it had been a blessing to come into the church and leave a lot of those people behind. Harry James Potter had been one of those people. Theodore had known that he would likely never see Harry here, because the Potters had never been devout church goers considering the jobs James and Lily worked were not meant for just weekdays. Even when Lily Potter decided to attend mass, it was rare, and Theodore made a great effort of not bumping into her in case she stopped to talk to him about Harry.

It was hard enough to not think about that part of his life when Harry went to college just across the way. When, sometimes, if he stopped at the garden entrance and looked toward the school, he could have sworn he saw a mess of black hair bobbing about. It was probably in his head, but Theodore had done his best to not look or not venture too far from the church grounds. It was so much safer here.

Except, now, it wasn't.

“H-,” Theo started on the name and stopped, “Mr. Potter.”

“Mr. Potter? Teddy, really?” Harry said in an exasperated tone as he leaned onto the back of the pew and let his chin rest on his forearms. “If I didn't know any better, I would think you weren't happy to see me.”

Theodore sighed. Oh, how heavily Harry weighed upon him now. He was so close, and yet infinitely far away. The space between them felt like a grater against his flesh. How much it hurt him not to touch Harry, because they had been close enough once.

So many secrets between the two of them.

Harry knew about Theodore's drug use, because it was the reason why they met. James Potter had been an officer back then and had arrested a young Theodore Nott from a known drug den, but instead of taking him in, he brought him home to sleep and eat off the drugs. It was at the Officer's dinner table that he met Harry. The boy with a thousand questions and not a single pause given to coddle Theodore in his confused state. It was significant, because most people had left Theodore alone since he didn't really radiate friendliness, but Harry Potter had turned out to be the kind of person that didn't take no for an answer.

So it was that their relationship started with Harry and his twenty questions. Questions Theodore had been so willing to answer if only to hear himself say some of them out loud. Now, though, Theodore could hardly stand to say the boy’s name.

Everything in him told Theo not to look at Harry, because whatever ground he had managed to gain since entering seminary school would be lost. So, instead, he busied himself with pulling that wooden rosary over his head and sighing when he felt the subtle weight of the crucifix over his heart. It grounded him. It prepared him for the fall out.

Finally, he turned his brown eyes to Harry and felt his chest tighten at the sight of those green eyes between laced eyelashes. They nearly took the breath out of him. To think that he had forgotten how much he had cared for this boy once, and now it all came barreling down on him like an anvil. Surely, it would crush him before he could do anything to damn himself to an even lower ring of Hell.

Whatever that weight may have done to him, though, it didn't do it quick enough to stop Theodore from looking down to Harry's lips, and it didn't kill him before he could see those lips split into that charming smile that always unsettled him. All those patched wounds that he had walked into the church with seemed to open in that moment, but he steeled himself against the onslaught of emotions that was slowly cascading over him like an avalanche.

“What can I do for you,  _Harry_?”

Forcing himself to say the name to prove that it held no power over him. It was a moot point, because the name made his stomach flip and turn in tight knots forcing him to look away, but he kept his face vacant of any tells. There was no way that Harry could be allowed to know how he still affected him. Theodore really didn't want him to know how much of a coward he was for hiding within these walls. He didn't need Harry to know how the hardest part of being part of this church was that he couldn't be part of Harry's life in the manner that he may have wanted. Not in any manner, really. It was too dangerous.

Harry's smile faltered, then fell completely.

“Look at me.”

Again, everything told him to not look and, this time, Theodore listened.

Instead, he moved to his feet after picking up the kneeler and just took his Bible into his hands holding it against his stomach. The weight of the Book gave him a sense of being grounded in the foundation of this church and offered him a sense that he might not be so easily torn down. The feeling was fleeting, though, because there was a tug on the wooden rosary around his throat, and Theodore found himself being wrenched around by it.

Harry held the wooden crucifix in his hand and spun the rosary around his hand to tug Theodore toward him. The space that Theodore managed to keep between them using the pew was for naught, because that tug brought him to his knees on it. Hard wood bit into his knees, but all he could focus on was the erratic beating of his sinner's heart in his ears. Then, there was the proximity of Harry's mouth to his. They were just a couple of inches apart due to the back of the pew providing a thin barrier between their bodies.

The space was not enough, because their breath mingled between them. Theodore could smell Harry's cologne, and Harry could smell frankincense on Theodore's robe. For what seemed like an eternity, Theodore stared into Harry's eyes and felt himself slipping toward that abyss again. How easy it would be to leave this church and never come back just so he could spend the rest of whatever time he had left getting lost in Harry, but then he would be damning him to the same fate.

Before Theodore could pull away, Harry was already rushing forward, and he was prepared to let it happen, prepared to be damned deeper into Hell with that kiss, when someone cleared their throat very loudly from the middle aisle of the church. Harry stopped when there was only a few centimeters between them and turned his eyes to the culprit.

“Remus!” Harry called with a small laugh as he released Theo's rosary.

Embarrassment was quick to swallow up whatever arousal Theodore had felt moments before at the sound of that name. He stood from the pew and cleared his throat, casting his brown eyes over to Father Lupin and feeling like a fool as his wise hazel eyes looked at him with pity and understanding. Father Lupin was quick to look away from him and to Harry as he put on a tender smile and reached out a hand toward him.

“Causing problems like old times, Harry?” He asked with an amused tone in his voice.

“Always,” Harry admitted with that stupidly charming smile on his face.

“Too much like your father for your own good.”

“Yeah, so I hear.”

Theodore tried to make himself smaller in the space so he might actually slip away without garnering any attention, but he didn't dare move to leave, even as Harry exited his own pew to shake Father Lupin's hand and Father Lupin put an arm around Harry's slim shoulders. Father Remus was a good friend of the Potters, and he had known Harry all of his life, if what Harry had told him was true. The two of them looked like family in an odd way, and Theodore suddenly felt so out of place that he had to look away.

“Is there something you needed?”

“Mum, dad, and Sirius told me to come and invite you over on Saturday for dad's birthday. Sirius said to bring your party hat and leave the collar behind.”

Father Lupin gave Harry a genuinely amused smile before nodding his head and releasing him.

“Tell them that I will be there. And tell Sirius that I will bring what I please.”

Harry laughed and nodded his head. He spared one glance over his shoulder at Theodore, and the weight of his eyes on him made Theodore's breath hitch. The moment between them was shattered, and a piece of his heart split off from the whole with it. He swallowed thickly and started down the pew to exit on the other aisle near the wall without looking back at Harry. It was easy to ignore the goodbye between friends as he held his Bible so tight that his knuckles had turned white. Whatever embarrassment he had from being caught with Harry had faded by the time he heard the back doors shut, and Harry was gone.

Even as Father Lupin stepped to his side, Theodore let whatever feelings that might have clouded his judgment melt away from him.

“We do what we must to protect people from our demons, Brother Nott. There is no shame in that.”

Theodore agreed with him, but he could not help the question that formed in his mind. A question that he would think on but never speak, because the answer that came to mind always scared him.

_Is it worth it? **No.**_

 


	9. Chapter 9

Theodore did not ask where I disappeared to, and I have not told him. There is a strange tension between us that has never before existed, and I am not sure if I should attempt to fix it, or what I could even do to take it away. If it is even possible at all. I can see, now, that he has his own secrets. Before, where I saw nothing but propriety and perfection in Theodore, I now see cracks in his armor. Not as if he is breaking, but as if the world itself is trying to break its way into him.

We all must fight our own battles, I suppose.

Father Lupin is leading us in prayer, and I bow my head, knowing I need the salvation of our God more than ever, but my mind refuses to empty itself. Since my return from my visit home, three days have passed, and I feel I am breathlessly waiting for the door of the tomb to roll open. A resurrection of my former self. The Draco who existed before Hermione Granger walked into his life, spinning a rose. I have taken to calling her Eve in my head. Part of me suspects this is to warn myself away from her and her temptation, but another part knows it is because she represents all that I want, but should never have.

It is a weight I am sure she would not thank me for. After all, she already told me that she was sorry for what she had done. Was she sorry she had kissed me?

_Was I?_

A chorus of “Amen” sounds around me, and I nearly startle. I have become lost in my own thoughts once again. I was once plagued with hubris; self-obsessed and feeling as though no one but myself, my wants mattered. It has been long since I have felt that way, but I can feel it stirring in my stomach. For all the things my mother said, as much as she believes in me, I do not know if I can believe so fully in myself. My mother does not know the thoughts that plague me, not really. How can she?

“Brother Malfoy, a word, please?”

I look up as Father Lupin approaches me, only then realizing the other Men of the Cloth have all dispersed. Only Theodore remains, and I catch his gaze as he stands near the large doors leading out of the Sanctuary. I nod at him, and he nods back before slipping out of the room.

“Of course, Father.”

I move to rise, but he sits beside me, his aging form almost seeming to sigh as he takes the weight off his feet. He seems to be the epitome of pious as he sits beside me, hands carefully folded in his lap. I feel a charlatan in comparison. But do I confess my thoughts and feelings to my elder? Would he understand?

“I know that something plagues you, Brother, but I must confess, the reasoning is lost on me. I have prayed for you, Brother Malfoy. I have prayed that God would aid you in whatever trials you are facing, but I want you to know that I am here for you, too.”

“Father, I know, but -”

“Part of my duty as Father of this Church is to aid priests-in-training. There are things of this world that haunt us all, Brother Malfoy, and I do not want you to feel as though you must face them on your own. We are more than co-habitants of this beautiful place. We are a Brotherhood. We share each Brother’s joys as well as his sorrows. The burden you bear is not just for you alone.”

His words wrap around me, but my hands only tighten their grasps on each other within my sleeves. Have I been stubbornly holding onto these feelings and fears thinking I must confront them all on my own? Is it true that I can lean on my fellow members of the Brotherhood for assistance? My eyes lift from the floor to Father Lupin’s face, and I see nothing but kindness and patience there. His eyes, so clear and open, are brimming with affection, love, and worry. For _me_.

“Is it Theodore?”

I blink, completely taken by surprise. _Theodore_. Of course, Father Lupin knows of Theodore’s affliction. My heart burns in my chest for my friend, my brother, but I shake my head. I have spent many a night lying awake and praying for God to heal the body of one of his own, but that is not what has me in such a state.

It is not the stoic reminder of pain and suffering on Theodore’s visage that haunts me, but the blazing symbols of life and freedom in Hermione’s passionate kiss that has turned me into a ghost to haunt this place of worship. I close my eyes and lean back against the pew, heart pounding and soul aching with her memory.

“No, Father Lupin,” I finally manage, though even my own voice sounds hollow in my ears, a cavernous hole edged with longing and wanting, but never to be filled. “It is not Theodore that bothers me so.”

He is silent for so long that I finally open my eyes to look at him.

“Perhaps, it is time you go on a mission trip, of sorts.”

“I do not believe I am ready for such a thing.”

“Not even if you only go across the street?”

He cannot be serious.

“To the college, you mean.”

“Yes, Draco.” I start slightly at the absence of my title. “Being a man of God means taking His word to others. That does not always mean you must travel overseas to visit foreign lands.” A small smile lifts up his lips, instantly taking away a dozen years from his face. “Sometimes, the most foreign lands are just across the way from where we live.”

My heart leaps and lodges in the middle of my throat.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

I nod. “I will visit the college and speak to the student body. Our congregation needs more youth.”

Father Lupin nods, his hand briefly on my shoulder to offer a firm squeeze. “Good. I think…” He rises, pauses, and turns to look back at me. “I think you will find what you are looking for there. The weight on your shoulders, Draco, is not something you need carry.” That beatific smile still graces his mouth. “God helps us when we cannot go on. He will never give you more than you can take without helping you shoulder the load.”

“As you say, Father Lupin.” I incline my head, though it is more to hide my eagerness than it is out of respect. Another sin I should repent for, and another moment of weakness.

That is what this is, I tell myself as I rise from the pew and make my way towards the massive doors in the front of the Church. The wood is dark, stained upon creation and also from years of use. Stained-glass windows decorate in three, perfect circles on each door. Vertically, they descend, leaving dimly-colored reflections on the floor in the light of early afternoon. I step between them, staying in shadow. Weakness. Yes, that is precisely what has taken hold of me.

It is weakness that propels my feet onto the front path, down towards the street. It is weakness that quickens my steps as I cross the street several minutes later. It is weakness that has the gray of my eyes burning brighter: the molten silver of anticipation. It is weakness that hastens my heart’s beating in my chest and my lungs’ collection of air.

And it is weakness that stirs warmth in my body as I step onto the campus for the first time in my life.

I have never been here, but I know where she will be as if I have been here a thousand times. I know that if I go into the office and speak to the woman behind the desk, she will direct me down the courtyard, to the left, and into the second building on my right. I know that when I walk into that building, it will be quiet, the lights will be bright enough, but the atmosphere will be muted. I know that dust will not cover the shelves, but it will seem as if the tiny motes drift through the air regardless. I know that students will inevitably stare in curiosity at me as I pass them by. I know that some will respectfully incline their heads, or even stop and reach a hand to me, imploring me to pray for them or their families. I know that once I move past them all, there will be a table in the back. I know that at the table will be a stack of books and paper, and among it all will be a girl with chestnut hair hanging free and wild about her shoulders.

Seeing her sitting there is overwhelming. Away from her, it is almost as if I have convinced myself she is an illusion, a trick of Satan’s to tempt me from the Church, but now, I see she is all too real. Her fingers move swiftly as she writes notes on the paper, one hand keeping her place in a book. Even from here, I can see the intelligence with the swift way she works. I do not even need to see it in her eyes.

“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

My words are soft, barely whispered aloud, but she must have heard something, for the full weight of her gaze is upon me, now.

“Draco?” Surprise colors her tone, and I am deeply, sinfully pleased that her cheeks flush a bright shade of crimson; the pencil drops to the table’s surface.

“Hermione,” I respond, my voice still barely more than a whisper as I move forward, closing the distance between us.

“What are you doing here?”

“I felt it was my turn to venture outside the walls.”

Several expressions move like shadows across her face, but each is gone before I can define it, and then she is looking at me with cautious confusion.

“You came here to find me?”

“I came to the college, because Father Lupin suggested it.” Her eyes tighten just the slightest bit. I take another step forward. “I came to the library, because I thought it the most likely place to find _you_.”

She sits up a bit straighter, her hands resting with palms down on the table. She looks all the world as if she might flee if startled, though I know she is stronger and braver than that. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she does not want to see me at all. Maybe I am the only one being haunted and plagued, and the kiss meant nothing to her at all.

Maybe I am nothing but a mistake, and she only wants to forget me.

“Why did you want to find me? I would assume you want nothing more to do with me after my…behavior.”

I move another step closer, a hand held out to a chair in question. She hesitates, and I have never felt my life hanging in the balance before this moment. This is judgement. She holds the scales, and depending on which side weighs down more will depend on if my heart will continue to beat in my chest.

She nods.

I barely refrain from sighing aloud as I take a seat.

“I have no ill will for you, Hermione.” My voice is so much calmer than my pulse. “I only want to talk.”

She closes the book she had been reading, and my eyes dart to the cover, a wry smile on my lips. _The Morality of Religion in the 21 st Century._ I do not believe in coincidences.

“Have we not realized that us talking ends in nothing good?” She almost laughs, I can see it in her eyes, but then it is gone, replaced with something closer to guilt than anything else. That is the last thing I want.

“I only learned that we are rather calm individuals who, when put in a situation together, become reactionary elements who then feed off each other’s basest emotions.”

This time, she _does_ laugh, and God help me, but it is such a beautiful sound.

“An accurate and, dare I say, _scientific_ definition for a priest.”

“I try.”

She smiles. I smile. This is what I want. This is easy. This is _fun_.

This is breaking my heart.

“What did you want to talk about, Draco?”

The rose. The kiss. You.

_How I might be falling in love with you._

“I want to invite you to Mass this Sunday.”

_What?_ Her expression must surely mirror mine. Of all the things I was thinking of saying to her, that was not one of them. What was it Father Lupin once said about the Spirit speaking through us? I had thought he meant that in a metaphysical sense, not quite a literal one. I had felt no great spiritual moving through me; I had merely blurted out the words like an adolescent boy who is nervous that the girl he likes might deny his prom invitation.

“What?”

“Will you attend Mass this Sunday?”

She looks at me, exasperation and confusion warring for dominance in her eyes.

“Draco, I’ve told you…that’s not for me.” She is shaking her head, and though I feel my heart dropping like a stone to rest in my stomach, I can’t quite squash this strange flutter of hope inside me. “My place is here.” She gestures with one hand, indicating the college, the library, the books. Not a Church, but no less a prison in its own right, I fear. “I don’t believe in God. Why would I go to a Catholic Mass?”

“Because you are curious.”

Her mouth opens and closes twice. Her eyes narrow. Excitement floods my veins. I can _feel_ it in the air. She is going to say yes. She may not believe. She may not understand. She may not even want to go, but now I have played on the thing she cannot deny. For Hermione Granger _is_ a curious girl. Her thirst for knowledge is so obvious to me that I am amazed her teachers do not simply throw books at her. Then again, judging by the large stack of texts surrounding her, they may do just that.

“You’re an idiot.” There is no heat in her tone, and I know I have won.

“Just come to one Mass, Hermione. Just one. See what it is all about - not the televangelist propaganda that you hate. Come and see what _I_ believe in.” My eyes burn with my sincerity, and I am desperate for her to see me as I am. See who I am _trying to be_.

Selfishly, I want her to turn to God not just to save her soul, but because then she will be less willing to tempt herself, and me, again.

Foolishly, I believe if she is a woman of the Church, not even _my_ sinful hands will covet her.

Belatedly, I realize that she has already given an affirmative answer, but I have become lost in looking at those soft lips, missing the words they mouthed.

Nights have passed with those lips playing front and center in my heated, feverish dreams. I must leave this place before I make a fool of myself and disrespect both the Church and my position. Or worse…repeat the transgression that has followed me like a shadow for days.

“You will? Truly?”

“Yes,” she repeats, clearly frustrated and already regretting her decision. I smile brightly, even through the squeeze in my chest as I see the way her eyebrows furrow and create tiny wrinkles on her forehead when she frowns. Her eyes, clouded but not unkind, lift up to me as I stand. “Are you leaving so soon?”

_I have to get out of her before I try to kiss you._

“Yes, unfortunately. Duty calls.” I motion to the rosary and clerical collar as I push the chair back into place beneath the table. “But I will see you in two days’ time, Hermione.” She nods, sighing softly. I take one more step closer, because I cannot resist her. Even now, when I should run from this room, I want to be closer. I want to take her into my arms and kiss her with as much passion as I can summon from the depths of my deprived heart. Instead, I merely touch her shoulder, but even that sends an electric jolt through my body that steals my breath. “We will both learn much, I believe,” I manage to say before dropping my hand and turning away from her, moving slowly back down the aisle.

“Draco.” I pause and look over my shoulder. She has risen from her seat, leaning slightly over the table. Eyes bright and cheeks slightly flushed, she looks as lovely as ever, and I feel a very real pain in my heart. A pain of desolation. No matter how lovely she is, no matter how much I appreciate her beauty, she will never be mine.

The robes of the Cloth have never felt so confining.

“Yes?”

She struggles for a moment. I can see it in the tightness of her shoulders and the way her throat moves as she swallows several times. How unfair. How unfair life is. Silently, I curse God, just once, for putting such a breathtaking woman in my path when I can never hold her in my arms.

“Promise me something.”

My pulse skyrockets, beating so loudly in my ears that I can no longer hear my own thoughts.

“Promise you what?”

“Promise me if I never go again after this time, you will still talk to me.”

There is no desperation in the statement. It is not a shameful thing to say, nor does it sound pathetic. Is it reasonable? Of course. There is nothing against the rules that says I cannot make friends with those outside of the Church. Is it practical? Of course. The college, after all, is so close to the Church that, of all the friends I could make, a college student makes the most sense topographically. Is it safe? No. No, it is not. I want to save her soul, but more than that, if Hermione stands firm against the Church, she will forever be something that represents a side of myself I can never accept.

Can I promise that? Can I risk that?

“I cannot.”

Hurt springs to life in her eyes, and I want to take the words out of the air and shove them back into my mouth, to erase them from existence. But I cannot. I cannot, and I have to let them hang between us like the damning things they are.

“I understand.”

“Hermione…”

“No, Draco, I do. I understand.” A weak smile wavers onto her lips. “I knew it was too much to ask, but…”

“You had to ask, anyway.”

She nods.

I incline my head.

“Until Sunday, Hermione.”

“Until Sunday, Draco.”

I leave the library before I can convince myself to turn back and say something else to her. I leave, and I somehow manage to keep my slow, even pace as I pass back through the campus towards the Church once more.

The afternoon sun is beginning to sink in the sky, turning the light from bright and airy to the somehow darker rays of pre-evening. I slip into my room, unsurprised to find Theodore there, sitting at his desk, reading.

“Was the college as inspirational as Father Lupin hoped it would be?”

I am not surprised that he knows where I have been. Though Theodore seems to keep many secrets of his own, it has always seemed fruitless to try and keep my own. But now, my thoughts are full of Hermione, and I am jealous. I want to keep them for myself. I do not want Theodore to know of her upcoming presence in a few days. I do not want to impart with him the way her hair frames her face like a wild halo, angelic and yet free all at once. I do not want him to know the way she smiles, how it lights up her eyes, or the way she smells, how it is an intoxicating aroma of flowers and books and fresh air.

“Yes.”

It is all I will say, and something in my tone must give me away, for he turns and regards me with that sharp gaze of his.

“Draco…”

“What?” I snap, my hands stiff at my sides as I regard him. The sickness is obvious in the shallower cheeks and the darkness under his eyes, but my heart is aching, and I feel irrational. Wild. I long for her with such pain that I can hardly bear it. Why am I forced to sit in this room in this Church? Why is _this_ my path?

“I only want you to be careful.”

“Theodore,” I sigh, my voice calmer as the wave of despair washes over, through, and past me, leaving me empty in its wake. “I fear that the time to be careful has come and gone.”

“And what time is it now?”

I sit heavily on the side of my bed as I look at him.

“Now, it is time to pray.”

 


End file.
